Midstate sees rise in food stamp usage, even among more affluent areas

“Food stamp usage should grow when the economy is bad but decline when the economy improves. We haven’t seen that." - Elizabeth Stelle

At age 72, Fred Jenkins of New Cumberland looks as if he’d rather be hanging out on a golf course or at an RV convention.

Instead, he’s sitting in a room next to a pool table in the New Cumberland Senior Center, waiting for someone to call his number so he can go through the food bank line.

Sharon Steiner of Millersburg and her two children have been on food stamps for 8 years. She says she doesn't know how her family would survive without the help.CHRISTINE BAKER, The Patriot-News

Jenkins worked in food service for 57 years. He got his last job at age 68, as a food and beverage director for a hotel in Harrisburg.

But now Jenkins needs a knee operation and is on medical leave. He hopes his employer will keep him, but Jenkins doubts he can return to the same position.

“All I have is social security. I’m taking about $500 a month out of my savings to keep going” he said.

He’s never needed to go to a food bank before.

“It doesn’t bother me at all. I had a good life,” Jenkins said. “I ran into some misfortune like everybody else. I don’t feel comfortable just lying around. I want to work.”

He’s also applied for food stamps for the first time in his life.

Jenkins has plenty of company, including here in the midstate.

The number of people on food stamps has gone up in most midstate municipalities over the past year, according to figures provided to The Patriot-News by the state Department of Public Welfare.

That might not come as a surprise as the economy continues a wobbly recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression. More people statewide are on food stamps than a year ago, and the number of people on food stamps nationwide nearly doubled from 2008 to 2010.

But the DPW figures also show that some of the biggest percentage increases in people on food stamps in the midstate have occurred in areas considered relatively affluent.

For example, several West Shore townships in Cumberland County and in the suburbs outside Harrisburg in Dauphin County have seen double-digit percentage jumps in the number of people on food stamps from July 2011 through August 2012.

Silver Spring Township has 19 percent more people on food stamps than a year ago. Nearly 100 were added to the rolls in Hampden Township for an increase of 14 percent. Residents on food stamps jumped 15 percent in Lower Allen Township and 12.2 percent in Upper Allen Township.

In Dauphin County, Swatara Township saw a 24 percent increase in the number of people on food stamps, Susquehanna Township 18.5 percent, Lower Paxton Township 18.3 percent and Lower Swatara Township 14.6 percent.

That more people are going on food stamps in relatively affluent midstate communities is no surprise to Eric Saunders, executive director of New Hope Ministries, a Dover-based nonprofit that has expanded to meet the growing need on the West Shore by opening a food bank and other support services on Trindle Road in Hampden Township.

Saunders said the facility has seen a 54 percent increase in the number of families coming in for food during the past year.

New Hope provides information on food stamp eligibility, and helps people apply for food stamps from the state, because “We have limited resources,” Saunders said.

Linda Decroes, a New Hope caseworker at the Trindle Road facility, said she is seeing more people and families coming in who thought of themselves as middle class, with a nice house in the suburbs and a two-car garage.

“The father had a high-end job with a hefty mortgage and kids in college. All of a sudden he’s unemployed and the wife has to take a job at McDonald's,” Decroes said. “The poor are poorer and the rich are now poorer.”

Mark Price, an economist with Keystone Research Center, said the figures show the rate of food stamp usage growing fastest in communities with the lowest poverty.

According to his analysis of the DPW data, the number of people on food stamps in high poverty municipalities in Cumberland, Dauphin, Lebanon, Perry and northern York counties grew from 51,972 in July 2008 to 82,704 in August 2012, an increase of 59 percent.

But the number of people on food stamps in low poverty municipalities in the same region climbed from 5,723 in July 2008 to 12,081 in August 2012, an increase of 111 percent.

Price said unemployment rates for all education groups, from high school dropouts to college graduates, have doubled over the course of the Great Recession, a trend documented in Keystone Research Center’s 2012 State of Working Pennsylvania report.

“Although college graduates still have lower unemployment rates and are much less likely to live in poverty than other educational groups, even they have faced increased difficulty finding work and thus it is not surprising to see more people even in affluent communities seek out food assistance,” Price said.

Bu Elizabeth Stelle, an analyst with the conservative-leaning Commonwealth Foundation, contends that the rise in food stamp usage in the midstate and elsewhere has much to do with a 2009 policy change by the Obama administration that allowed states to opt out of enforcing work requirements for people on food stamps.

“That dramatically expanded the number of able-bodied adults” who otherwise wouldn’t have qualified for food stamps because they were not working or seeking work.

She said food stamp rolls have been steadily growing in Pennsylvania since 2002.

“Food stamp usage should grow when the economy is bad but decline when the economy improves. We haven’t seen that. We have a chronic increase in food stamp usage in Pennsylvania. That tells me that people are relying on it as a long-term lifestyle of sorts,” Stelle said.

“It’s still higher compared to 2011 but we are starting to see a difference,” Stelle said.

She said the new policy requires that after 8 weeks on food stamps, a recipient must start searching for a job and apply to at least three new jobs each week. The objective is for someone to be working at least 20 hours a week, or have the same amount of time in a work-related activity such as job training. However, Stelle said the state has not set a limit on how long someone can go without getting a job before their food stamp benefit is impacted, as long as they are actively searching.

She said food stamp usage in Cumberland and Lebanon counties has continued to rise since June, but the increase in Cumberland is only three caseloads.

Statewide about 4,000 fewer households are on food stamps since the work requirements went into effect, Stelle said.

Corbett earlier this year also required counting people’s assets as income in determining food stamp eligibility. Stelle said the new work requirement hasn’t gotten as much attention, but in her view it will have more impact in trimming food stamp rolls than the asset test.

Yet DPW’s September numbers show most midstate municipalities still seeing more people being added to the food stamp rolls each month.

In Cumberland County, the numbers went up in 18 of 34 municipalities, with continued increases in Hampden, Lower Allen, Upper Allen and Silver Spring townships.

In Dauphin County, 22 of 37 municipalities saw an increase in the number of people on food stamps from August to September. Three other Dauphin County municipalities saw no change, while those on food stamps in Harrisburg dropped from 23,073 yo 21,810.

More than 200 people were added to the food stamp rolls during the month in each of Susquehanna, Swatara and Lower Paxton townships, according to DPW.

Price said more people and families are on food stamps out of need, not due to any efforts by the federal government to make them easier to get.

“Most people would prefer not to use food stamps. There remains a stigma, and that’s more than true in this region because it’s typically conservative. If you see a rise in food stamp usage, it’s a reaction to the economy. [Unemployment] is what drives access to the safety net.”

Sharon Steiner of Millersburg has been on food stamps nearly 8 years to support herself and her two disabled children ever since her husband divorced her and declared bankruptcy. She lost her home and the hairdressing business she ran out of the house.

“It was degrading,” Steiner recalls at first. Back then it was easier to tell who was on food stamps in the grocery stores before the state went to the green debit card recipients now use. “It’s not something that I ever dreamed of, but I had two kids. I had to put a roof over their head and food in their stomach.”

Today, Steiner said her only income besides food stamps is the Supplemental Security Income she gets for her children. She lives in public housing and said her rent goes up whenever she gets an increase in Supplemental Security Income.

She didn’t want to go back to being a hairdresser, so Steiner got an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Harrisburg Area Community College. She said the state cut her monthly food stamp amount from $380 to $254 while she was in school, and now it’s $95 a month.

Food prices and expenses are going the other direction. Steiner said the food stamp money isn’t enough to cover what the family needs to eat, so she relies on one of several food banks that serve the Millersburg area. Her mother scours grocery store shelves for bargains and buys items that she saves for Steiner and her family.

Steiner said she’s been unable to land a job.

She’s seeing a lot more people on food stamps and at the food banks, even though she’s convinced the state has made it tougher to get on food stamps. A life-long Millersburg resident, Steiner is surprised at some of the people she sees who now need help.

“Some of them used to look down on folks, now for whatever reason the tables have turned,” she said.

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